The details are going to come out slowly, but these two additions to the newly signed debt ceiling package caught my eye:

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, got $50 million for an indoor rain forest for his state.

Florida got $2 million for children's golf.

The debt ceiling was raised by 800 billion. This means they are planning to borrow 800 billion dollars more this year. Deficit spending should have been an issue in this election and we heard very little about it. The Republicans are showing they are the all time champs of pork, making those bad ole tax and spend dems of yesteryear look like skinflints. Here in Houston we are actually beginning to suffer from it. Houston proper can't get a dime of federal support for mass tranportation, but Tom Delay can get billions to build eight lane mega highways out to his surburban district, creating more urban sprawl, more destruction of wildlife habitat, and ever more commuters spewing unfathomable amounts of automobile pollution as they sit in traffic jams on his eight lane highways that feed into rundown in-town streets and neglected federal hiways that can't handle all the traffic. It is no accident that Houston becomes more unlivable everyday, a downhill slide that parallels Mr. Delay's rise to power.

Old, but might be news to some

ALABAMA $4 Million for the International Fertilizer Development Center in Muscle Shoals

ALASKA $443,300 to develop salmon fortified baby food

ARIZONA $2.5 Million for Lone Pine Dam Road

CALIFORNIA $150,000 for the Girl Scouts Golden Valley Council bridge project

FLORIDA $1 Million for the Palm Coast Trail System in Flager County

KENTUCKY $2.3 Million for an animal waste management research lab in Bowling Green

HAWAII $4 Million for mitigation of congestion in Kapolei City

ILLINOIS $1.4 Million for an Interstate 55 sound barrier in Darien

MASSACHUSETTS $1.2 Million for Cape Cod Seashore Eastham/Dennis Bike Trail repair

MICHIGAN $4 Million for environmentally friendly mass transit system for Traverse City for summer tourism.

MISSISSIPPI $750,000 for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science

MONTANA $1.5 Million for the “fuels in schools” biomass project

NORTH CAROLINA $1 Million for Garden Parkway in Gatson and Mecklenburg counties

OHIO $750,000 for the City of Circleville’s sewer construction project; $350,000 for music education at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland

OREGON $6.28 Million to Oregon State University for wood utilization research and $688,000 for the barley gene mapping project

PENNSYLVANIA $250,000 to promote tourism in the Allegheny National Forest area

TENNESSEE $2 Million for the Fiery Gizzard Trail

VERMONT $500,000 for a wood products program

VIRGINIA $500,000 for the Amherst County River Walk Trail; $200,000 for a Vermont Civil War Monument

WASHINGTON $1 Million for the Enumclaw welcome center; $1 Million for the Norwegian American Foundation

WISCONSIN $3.2 Million for the Chequamego-Nicolet National Forest “Wisconsin Wild Waterways”

Everyone’s hero, John McCain (R-AZ), took issue in a floor speech before the budget passed with a plan for $1 Million for the Wild American Shrimp Initiative:

‘I’m hoping that the appropriators could explain to me why we need $1 Million for this – are American shrimp unruly and lacking initiative? Why does the U.S. taxpayer need to fund this “No Shrimp Left Behind act?”

Hey, where's mine?

I shouldda voted Republican. Or Democrat.

It just keeps getting better!

The Missouri Pork Producers Federation was been awarded $1 Million to convert hog waste into energy.

$225,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation in South Carolina.

$1,593 to store potatoes in Madison, Wisconsin
$250,000 for asparagus technology and production in Washington
$25,000 for a banana factory for an arts program in Bethany, Pennsylvania.

$25,000 to study mariachi music in Nevada
$100,000 on a swimming pool in Ottawa, Kansas
$306,000 to repair an outhouse in Indiana
$75,000 to renovate the Merry Go Round Playhouse in Auburn, New York.

$1 Million for a 'world birding center' in Texas
$150,000 to pay for 'beaver management' in Wisconsin
$75,000 for hides and leather research in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania
$75,000 to help persuade teens in Sewickley, PA to abstain from sex.

$1.5 Million was for the Rep. Richard Gephardt Archive at the Missouri Historical Society.

...need to add a couple of zeroes to that figure if anyone wants teens to abstain from sex. Might as well just use those existing funds to purchase each kid a nice motel room so they ain't too uncomfortable in the back seat.

I won't even comment on the 'beaver management' stuff...

That figure was per capita..probably still not enough.

Erm, most of these numbers are pretty small compared to billions on highways to nowhere etc., baby & bathwater? Some seem even ... worthwhile?

__________________
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'87 560SEL
'83 280CE
'01 Nissan Micra
'98 VW Passat
'83 911 turbo

According to the 2000 Census, the borough of Sewickley's population was 3,902 with an estimated population in July 2002 of 3,817 (-2.2% change)
Males: 1,732 (44.4%), Females: 2,170 (55.6%)

Elevation: 840 feet

County: Allegheny

Land area: 1.0 square miles

Zip codes: 15143.

Median resident age: 42.1 years
Median household income: $39,598 (year 2000)
Median house value: $132,500 (year 2000)

White Non-Hispanic (87.4%)
Black (9.6%)
Two or more races (1.1%)
Hispanic (1.1%)
American Indian (0.5%)

Crime in Sewickley (2002):
0 murders (0.0 per 100,000)
1 rape (25.5 per 100,000)
3 robberies (76.6 per 100,000)
3 assaults (76.6 per 100,000)
15 burglaries (382.8 per 100,000)
51 larceny counts (1301.4 per 100,000)
3 auto thefts (76.6 per 100,000)
City-data.com crime index = 134.0 (higher means more crime, US average = 330.6)

This one is hilarious:

The Missouri Pork Producers Federation was been awarded $1 Million to convert hog waste into energy.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Us folks who believe in federalism believe that an awful lot of these worthy projects ought to be paid for by the taxpayers of the states which benefit.

I am not especially interested in promoting asparagus in Washington or a banana factory in Pennsylvania, for example.

The argument about interstate systems was settled by Lincoln and then Lincoln's gang of thieves (Republicans) after the War Between the States. In which they rationalized public works projects for the public good. Before his rewriting of federalism, interstate projects were largely private ventures--with some exception. This meant that roads and rails had to pay their own way since they were considered to have local benefit.

Nowadays we all generally accept (except for troglodyte Libertarians) that there is some sort of 'common good' that allows raiding the larder for whatever crackpot scheme can get pushed through Congress.

. . . pretty soon you're talking about some real money.

Amount
Recipient

$450,000
Baseball Hall of Fame

$97,000
Franco-American Heritage Center, Lewiston, Maine

$150,000
Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program, Lady B Ranch, California

$950,000
Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

$250,000
Police Activities League Center, Anaheim California

$2,000,000
Kitchen Relocation, Fairbanks (Alaska) North Star Borough

$250,000
Alaska Statehood Celebration, University of Alaska

$250,000
Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, Tennessee

$121,250
Demolition, Broadview Heights, Ohio

$99,000
Train students in the motorsports industry, Patrick Henry Community College

$50,000
Workforce development, Fashion Business, Inc., Los Angeles, California

$100,000
Amer-I-Can program for youth, Illinois

$300,000
Relocate the Waynesboro, Mississippi Police Department

$250,000
Camp Police Athletic League of New Jersey

$35,000
Alabama Sports Hall of Fame

$100,000
National Association of Promoting Success

$175,000
Love Social Services, Fairbanks, Alaska

$51,000
Robert E. Lee Community Center, Chase City, Virginia

$150,000
Grammy Foundation

$167,000
Horn Fly Research in Alabama

$72,750
Public swimming pool construction, Prescott, Alaska

$300,000
Revitalize downtown Council Bluffs, Iowa

$500,000
Beyond Missing

$75,000
Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame, New York

$100,000
High Falls Film Festival, Rochester, New York

$291,000
International Museum of Women, San Francisco, California

$300,000
Streetlights and salt dome, Markham, Illinois

$1,500,000
Transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga

$250,000
City pool renovation and construction, Banning, California

$250,000
Construct the Great Falls Parking Garage, Auburn, Maine

$6,285,000
Wood utilization research across several states

$200,000
Aviation Hall of Fame

$500,000
Equipment purchases, KENW public radio station, Portales, New Mexico

$100,000
“No Workshops, No Jumpshots," Virginia

$200,000
Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, Greenville, Texas

$275,000
National History Museum of the Adirondacks, Tupper Alaska

$150,000
Obscenity Crimes Project

$100,000
Breedlove Dehydrated Foods, Lubbock, Texas

$50,000
Feral hog control in Missouri

$250,000
Traffic calming, Windermere, Florida

$500,000
Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City

$250,000
North Creek Ski Bowl, North Creek, New York

$1,750,000
Parents Anonymous

$1,500,000
Wood products wastewater repairs Canton, North Carolina

$150,000
Fishing Rationalization Research in Alaska

$1,500,000
Anchorage Museum/Transit intermodal depot, Alaska

$500,000
Center for the Living Arts, Alabama

$500,000
B&O Railroad Museum Restoration, Maryland

$250,000
Surplus federal property study, Walla Walla, Washington

$98,000
Alaska Sea Otter Commission

$200,000
Dennison Railroad Depot Museum, Ohio

$2,500,000
Horse Springs Ranch, New Mexico

$150,000
“Parent Intern” program, Our House, Inc., Decatur, Georgia

$3,000,000
Center for Grape Genetics, Geneva, New York

$150,000
Coca-Cola Space Science Center, Columbus, Georgia

$100,000
Punxsutawney (Pennsylvania) Weather Museum

$280,000
Sidewalks, street furniture and façade improvements, Bakersfield, California

$1,000,000
B.B. King Museum Foundation, Indianola, Mississippi

$250,000
A day care center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

$268,000
Livestock waste research in Iowa

$350,000
Project Peacemaker, Turtle Mountain Community College, North Dakota

$200,000
Wallace State Center for Automotive Manufacturing and Plastics, Hanceville, Alabama

$160,000
Seafood waste in Alaska

$1,108,000
Alternative salmon products in Alaska

$796,000
Ice Age National Scientific Reserve

$42,124
Citrus waste utilization in Florida

$50,000
Wild rice research in Minnesota

$300,000
Wool research

$100,000
Trees Forever Program, Iowa

$1,800,000
Eider and sea otter recovery at Alaska Sea Life Center

$1,000,000
Trailways Station Revitalization and Visitors Center, Georgia

$3,500,000
Bus acquisition in Atlanta

$1,000,000
Clean fuel shuttle buses in Atlanta

$750,000
Broward/Palm Beach County buses, Florida

$2,000,000
Replace buses in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

$200,000
YMCA bus, Alabama

$25,000
Fitness equipment, YMCA of Bradford County, Pennsylvania

$921,000
Hardwood tree improvement and regeneration, Indiana

$350,000
Leafy spurge eradication in North Dakota

$10,000
Slickspot Peppergrass

$500,000
Chugach NF Valdez visitor center, Alaska

$515,000
Brown tree snake management in Guam

$3,000,000
Grape Genomics Research Center, Davis, California

$347,000
Grapefruit juice/drug interaction research, Florida

$63,000
Noxious Weed in the Desert Southwest, Las Cruces, New Mexico

$470,000
Swine and other animal waste management research, North Carolina

$150,000
“Check ‘Em Out” program

$750,000
Close Up Foundation

$100,000
Marine turtles program

$430,000
Automotive technology and repair workforce training, Excel Institute, Washington, D.C.

$100,000
Pennsylvania Hunting and Fishing Museum, Warren, Pennsylvania

$1,250,000
Train-to-Mountain, Washington

$150,000
Alaska Botanical Garden

$250,000
Boardwalk in Brookings Harbor, Oregon

$200,000
Brookings Harbor Seafood Processing Plant, Oregon

$800,000
Improve a historic building in Las Vegas, Nevada

$500,000
Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center, Anchorage, Alaska

$100,000
National Railway Museum, Green Bay, Wisconsin

$900,000
Tongass Coast Aquarium, Ketchikan Alaska

you call that pork? ha

how about 185 million dollar tax break for Oldsmobile dealers

Can't count tax breaks since the listing is for direct appropriations (omnibus spending) to the recipients, perhaps not all at once, but the amounts are not credits or deductions from taxes.

1. Cruise Ship Industry gets a one-year delay in paying taxes on the airplane tickets, hotels, and other excursions it sells in the United States. The tax delay would save Carnival Corp $15 million and Royal Caribbean would save $8 million to $10 million, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

2. Tax Credit for Natural Gas Production in Alaska could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal treasury.

3. Tax break on Archery products - $8 million

4. Dog and Horse Race Provision - $25 million

5. Conservation/Forestry bonds - $252 million

6. Small Aircraft tax break - $519 million

7. Oldsmobile Dealers

8. Ranchers tax break

9. Credit for the maintenance of railway tracks - $492 million

10. Taxbreaks for Railroads - $492 Million

11. Brownfield tax break - $191 Million

12. Tax Break for trial lawyers - $282 Million

13. Tax Break for Shipbuilders - $310 Million

14. Special rules for livestock sold on account of weather-related conditions - $25 million

15. Tax breaks on Horse sales - $64 million

16. Tax Breaks for Big Energy - $14 billion

17. Extension and modification of research credit - $9.8 billion

18. Tax breaks for Hollywood - $1.2 billion

19. Tax Break for Sioux City, IA Hotel - $94 million

20. NASCAR tax break - $92 million

This is probably part of the Thermal Depolymerization research in MO. If there had to be "pork" I supported, even as a Libertarian, this would be it. It would reduce pollution, landfills, and our ever-increasing dependence on foriegn oil.

A TD plant should be outside of every major urban area. For every 100lbs of carbon-based waste (biological) converted, water and various gasses (O2, H2, N2) make up about 60% of the byproducts. 3-5% is bio-solids, and the rest is Oil (IIRC).



This means that everything from pig waste to plastic is fair game for conversion. Think of it like a big Mr. Fusion, only making oil.

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what's so funny the pork part?

http://www.google.com/search?q=hog+waste+for+energy